Whumptober 2019- Don't Move
by Frankie McStein
Summary: "If you move, if you disturb the lasers, the motion detectors will set off the bomb."


"Don't move." The voice was chilling; the satisfaction was clear in the tone, the love of a job well done.

The two men flicked their eyes toward each other, not daring to move their heads. A chuckle bounced off the walls.

"If you break these lasers, even just shift enough to disturb them, the motion detectors will trigger the bomb." Cold and cruel. A dangerous combination. The kind of man who would drug someone, beat them with a baseball bat, then make them watch while he did the same to their friend. The kind of man who would tie people to chairs in a room with a bomb.

"And then it's bye-bye birdie." He laughed. He actually laughed.

Rick's arms made an abortive move; he'd been about to yank against the ropes but saw the laser resting on his right arm at the last moment. T.C. was glaring at their captor.

He smirked at them both. "I would have killed Magnum if you two hadn't gotten in the way. Now I need to leave the island." There was a chiding note to his voice now, as if this was their fault. As if he thought they deserved it.

"Say goodbye to Magnum for me. If you last that long."

...

T.C. was feeling dizzy. His brain kept trying to tell him that the floor beneath him was swaying and dipping. He was actually glad for the ropes that were pinning him to the chair. He pushed down against the metal arms and felt the solid mass beneath most definitely not moving. That was good. Not moving was good.

...

Rick was struggling to keep his head up. The pain in his shoulder was coming in waves that kept threatening to take him by surprise and make him twitch. He could see the red beams from the motion sensors, and he knew it was a bad thing but couldn't quite remember why. Something bad was going on, he knew that. Maybe he was working a case for Thomas again? Tommy's cases were such a pain sometimes.

...

Finding Rick and T.C. after they'd been kidnapped had been surprisingly easy. It was getting them out of the room they were trapped in that was proving difficult. When Magnum and Higgins had gone running in, guns drawn and heads on a swivel, they'd expected to find their friends in a bad way. Bloodied and bruised. Tied up and unconscious. Maybe, although neither of them said it out loud, dead.

They hadn't expected to look through a large safety glass window to find them sat in chairs in the middle of room that was both locked up tight and wired to blow. Motion detectors that looked to have been scavenged from a home security system- "a rather substandard system at that," Higgins had sniffed- were pointing at the two men.

"According to our host, if the beams break, we go up." T.C. had tried to sound casual about it, like he was sure the four of them could figure some way out of this absurd mess. But the beating they had taken, coupled with hours of holding themselves straight and stiff and still, had all taken its toll on him and Rick both. And the strain was all too clear in his voice.

"Lasers like this are quite easy to bypass." Higgins didn't bother to explain how she knew that, and Magnum didn't waste time asking. "All we'd need is a few small pieces of mirror and some way of setting them up between the emitters and the boys. Then we can bounce the beams straight back on themselves."

She and Magnum had separated, and both had quickly found toilets complete with mirrors on the walls. A few sharp blows had the glass shattering, and they both carefully carried the larger pieces back to the door.

"We still need some way of fixing the mirror in place." Higgins peered through the window again. "The emitters are quite large actually. It might be possible to simply tie the mirror onto them. All we'd need is a few strips of material." She started unbuttoning her blouse, stopping when she heard a ripping sound and looked around to see a bare chested Magnum tearing his shirt.

He looked over to her with a proud grin.

"This'll do, right?" he asked, holding out the strips. His grin faded at her incredulous look.

"Why would you consider it necessary to leave yourself half-naked when it's perfectly apparent that I have a camisole on beneath this blouse?" She kept her eyebrows raised as Magnum looked between her and his ruined shirt. Then she rolled her eyes.

"Come on then, Captain Kirk." And Higgins busied herself sorting through the pile of mirror shards for pieces that were big enough while Magnum tried to open the door.

"I think he smashed the lock," Rick yelled out to them, sounding exhausted, and Magnum nodded at the enquiring look Higgins threw him.

They both stared at the door for a few moments and then Magnum's eyes narrowed.

"There's an air vent up there." His tone was speculative. "It looks a little narrow for me…"

"But I should be able to just about fit," Higgins finished, standing and carefully slipping a few pieces of mirror into one back pocket and the pocketknife Magnum offered her into the other. "You'll have to boost me up."

Magnum couldn't help but grin at her total lack of hesitation. Not so long back he'd have thought it a good day if he'd managed to stay out of Higgins' way. And now she was willing to crawl into a room full of explosives to save his two best friends? Funny how things work out.

Even with her slender frame, it was a tight fit. She had to breathe and move at different moments and it took an exhaustive effort, apparent from the way she was panting at each breath by the time she reached the end of the vent.

"You doing okay, Jules?" Rick's only answer was a loud clanging as Higgins smacked the grate that was in her way. It tumbled to the floor and the three men watched as her hands, streaked with grime, appeared in the opening. One hard tug and she toppled out of the vent and to the floor with a thud that had them all wincing.

"Higgy?"

"I'm good." She didn't sound good, she sounded winded, but she rolled to her feet and sucked in a deep breath, then threw Rick and T.C. a grin. "Ready to get out of here?"

"Umm… about that. How _are_ we getting out of here? There's no way we'll fit through that vent." T.C. looked offended as Higgins raised an incredulous eyebrow at him.

"Either we figure out how to manually trigger the door release or the emergency services will simply cut the door open when they arrive." She said it like it was the most simplistic thing in the world.

"If the emergency services are on their way, why aren't we just waiting for them to show up?" T.C. couldn't help the tone of his voice, speaking like he was talking to a child, and Higgins raised both eyebrows as if to say, 'You're stressed so I'll overlook this, but I will not forget it.'

"Because there was an multi-car pile up earlier, and it'll take a while for anyone to get here. And you're both exhausted." Despite the look she had thrown his way, her tone was gentle. "You're both shaking, and, from the bruises I can see, I'm guessing you both need more than a lie-down."

She was moving as she spoke, slipping carefully around the lasers and frowning at the motion detectors.

T.C. couldn't argue her point; his body was aching, muscles twitching from the strain, and he could see himself getting closer and closer to breaking the damn lasers with every passing minute.

So he sat silently and watched as Higgins managed to make short work of blocking the lasers with the little bits of broken mirror. She started with the ones covering Rick. T.C. glanced over as best he could without moving his head and saw Rick's eyes were half-closed.

"You okay there?" His only answer was a tired-looking smile. Higgins had been right; they didn't have time to wait for the professionals.

One by one, the wretched little red points vanished and Rick and T.C. both relaxed, letting their bodies slump down against the ropes holding their wrists to the chairs. Higgins turned to them with a warm smile, clearly proud of the work she had done.

"Ready to move?" Both men nodded and she pulled Magnum's pocketknife out, flicking out the blade.

The moment she stepped near the chairs a small beep sounded and she froze. Her eyes moved past Rick and T.C. and widened at what she was seeing.

"Higgins?" Magnum had heard the beep and, though he couldn't see past her, he saw Higgins' entire body tense.

"There must be a pressure plate here." She was fighting to keep her voice calm. "The timer's been activated."

Rick roused himself enough to tell Higgins to leave, T.C. echoing his words. Magnum and Higgins both ignored them.

"Do you know anything about disarming bombs?"

"I've seen it done. Once. At a distance."

"I dated a girl who worked bomb disposal for a few months."

"If the bomb is as second-rate as the motion detectors, then maybe it won't be that hard to disarm?"

"Damn it, Jules, get out!"

"Please, Higgy Baby, just go!"

Magnum pulled out his cell. "I'm gonna call a friend of mine. He left the SEALs not long after I joined; we only ran one mission together. But he was good with IEDs, and he owes me." He absolutely did not add that they hadn't spoken in over a year, that he didn't know if he still had the right number, or that Jake's talent had been in building bombs and not disarming them.

Jake actually picked up, was happy to hear from his old friend, and instantly demanded a video call so he could check out what he was dealing with.

Higgins walked past the two chairs, resolutely not looking at the men sat in them or the looks of fear and anger on their faces. She stopped in front of the bomb, moving her phone slowly over it. Jake hummed a few times.

_"It looks pretty simple to me. But, looks can be deceiving. I gotta tell ya, Miss, this could all go horribly wrong."_

Higgins turned to the window. The look Magnum was giving her told her he would never blame her for leaving the room and running. She squared her shoulders and looked back to the rapidly shrinking timer.

"All right, Mr. Henshaw. Where do you suppose I should start?"

...

There had been a hurried conversation about blast radiuses and explosive force and the final decision seemed to be that, even if they had started running when the timer started counting down, Magnum and Higgins would still be too close for safety when the timer hit zero. No one had been too happy to hear that, but Higgins had just asked again where she should start.

"_You see those four screws, off to the left? Take them out."_

For a few seconds, there was nothing but the slight scratch of metal on metal, and then a frantic yell of "_Don't move!"_ from Jake had made everyone freeze. He had gone on to say something about triggers and tremblings; the upshot seemed to be that things weren't as simple as he had originally thought.

"_Now, without putting any tension on that yellow wire, can you reach in behind that metal plate?"_

The adrenaline had pulled Rick back to full consciousness. He and T.C., unable to turn around and face the bomb, were watching Magnum's face to try to gauge how well Higgins was doing. Their friend was doing a good job of keeping his body language relaxed. But they knew him well enough to spot the tension around his eyes.

"_Can you angle your cell more to the left? I can't quite see the edge there."_

Magnum swallowed hard, Rick and T.C. watching every movement he made. Either the timer was nearly at zero or Higgins and Jake were having more trouble than their conversation would seem to suggest.

"_Is there a way you can get the blade to that without touching that circuit board?"_

"I'm not sure." Higgins' voice shook slightly, but there was iron beneath the fear.

"_I don't want to rush you, but you only have fourteen seconds left."_ Jake's voice was shaking too, clearly feeling the strain of anticipation.

Magnum didn't seem to realize he had his hand pressed against the glass, like he was trying to transport himself through it. T.C. took a deep breath and held it, waiting to find out if he would hear the explosion that would kill him. Rick clenched his jaw against the urge to count out loud as the tension crashed through his veins.

"Got it." Her voice was so quiet that it took a moment for them to realize Higgins had spoken.

Then Jake gave a heartfelt sigh and a shaky "_whoop!"_ of exultation. Magnum let his head fall to the glass as Rick and T.C. both started laughing from sheer relief. All four men called out to Higgins, telling her she was amazing, that she had done fantastically.

No one pushed her to rush and cut the ropes still holding the two men to their chairs. No one even suggested she might want to stand up and move away from the bomb that was sitting with four seconds left on the timer.

When Katsumoto arrived, ten minutes later, Rick was unconscious, sprawled on the floor with his head resting in Higgins' lap. T.C. was staring at his own leg with a confused sort of look on his face, and talking about how he never would have thought it was broken. Magnum was knocking gently on the glass separating him from his friends with the look of man considering something ill-advised.

Katsumoto was fairly certain he didn't even want to know why the P.I. was shirtless.


End file.
